49ERS QB READY TO BUILD ON PLAYOFF SHOWING

Confident Kaepernick says team will ‘be back’

NEW ORLEANS 
Colin Kaepernick might have given San Francisco some solace as it stepped off the field Sunday.

The 49ers quarterback didn’t win this Super Bowl.

The way he played, there is hope he’ll lead them to another.

The second-year passer did as much with his arm as with his legs, guiding his team to within reach of Baltimore in a 34-31 Super Bowl loss.

It was a championship-caliber performance.

The 2011 second-round draft pick rushed for a 15-yard score in the fourth quarter, the longest touchdown run by a quarterback in Super Bowl history. His 62 rushing yards fell 2 shy of Steve McNair’s Super Bowl record.

Kaepernick was 16 of 28 for 302 yards, a touchdown and an interception, joining Joe Montana and Steve Young as the only other 49ers quarterbacks to eclipse 300 passing yards in a Super Bowl.

The 25-year-old summed up his postgame thoughts with three words.

“We’ll be back,” Kaepernick said.

Power outage explanation

A joint statement was released late Sunday night from Entergy and SMG explaining the Superdome’s 34-minute partial loss in power.

SMG is the stadium’s management company.

“Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome,” the statement said, “a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue.

“Backup generators kicked in immediately as designed. Entergy and SMG subsequently coordinated start up procedures, ensuring that full power was safely restored to the Superdome.”

The statement continued: “The fault-sensing equipment activated where the Superdome equipment intersects with Entergy’s feed into the facility. There were no additional issues detected.”

Pregame ceremony

Twenty-six children from Sandy Hook Elementary High sang “America the Beautiful” with singer Jennifer Hudson before the game. There were 27 deaths at the school in a shooting last year.

The chorus of third- and fourth-graders, led by their music teacher, released a statement.

“Our wish is to demonstrate to America and the world that, ‘We are Sandy Hook, and we choose love,’ ” it read.

Extra points

A third-down penalty Sunday gave the Ravens at least four extra points.

San Francisco defensive end Ahmad Brooks jumped offside in the first quarter on third-and-9. The 49ers forced an incompletion on the play, but with the flag, the Ravens had another third-down chance instead of attempting a 36-yard field goal.

Et cetera

• The 49ers had five captains. One of them was a quarterback: Helix High graduate Alex Smith. Ex-Chargers safety C.J. Spillman was the special teams captain.

• The AFC won the opening coin toss for the second straight Super Bowl. The NFC previously won 14 consecutive Super Bowl coin tosses.

• Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones opened the second half with a 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. It was the longest play in Super Bowl history. He also caught a 56-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter that gave the Ravens a 21-3 lead.